Thread: What if the oline doesn't get any better this season?

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

So where does this all lead?

More taco nights?


Seriously, I think what will happen here is that we will win against the easier teams and lose against most of the better teams with a vicious pass rush because we can't stop it. And Cutler does melt down and then the team melts down.

I am waiting to see what happens in terms of any public statements from anyone. I personally don't think Lovie is a great leader. I do believe that Emery is. I don't know what is happening behind the scenes. Is Lovie waiting for the players to show some leadership and resolve it themselves (I think with the beginnings of a fracturing of the locker room, it would be a mistake to take that tact). Is Emery getting involved or is he in turn waiting to see how Lovie handles it? (quite honestly, that's what I would do if I were him. At this point I'd want to find out what type of crisis leadership my HC has. If it got too far out of control I guess he's have to step in -- or perhaps both Lovie and Emery already have.

We don't know and no one is saying. All we can do is to continue to monitor the interaction of the players as well as anything spoken publicly (as that will speak to whether or not Lovie has told them to keep their public yap shut). We can only try to pick up any clues as they happen and piece together what they are doing.

I am a backer of Cutler, but this has been very dissappointing. I have in fact lost some respect for him as a leader. Can it be gained back? Yes, he has to step up understand what and why he did wrong, not let it happen again and just as important play well. If those things don't happen, management may in fact start to roll around the unspeakable idea of replacement.

These types of very public controversies simply can not happen on a routine basis - as well as a "premier" QB folding under pressure. Those things will get addressed by an organization.

Edit: After having read this, it read like I was not with Cutler in terms of admonishing his OL (specifically Webb). I've said before that I have no problem with that. My issue is the public controversy that followed. Peopl jumping on Cutler - even from his own team. Again, I have no problem with Cutler gettin on Webb, I think that everyone needs to respect each other though. Tell Webb what is wrong. Tell him what needs to change, but respect him as a man. Bumping him or pushing him was not necessary or a good thing. The man was doing a horrible job and Cutler was right to tell it to his face but not right to get into his personal space.

If I mess up and my boss yells at me and lets me know what havoc I've caused, I can't say I'd like it, but I would take it. If he yelled at me and then pushed me, we would have an instant problem right then and there.

So that is problem number one with Cutlers performance. The second problem is.... well... Cutlers performance. He simply can't react that way when things go bad. Whether he likes it or not, the attitude and frustrations of the QB rub off on the whole team and we saw it.


So those are the type of public controversies that the team will not put up with for long -- a leader not respecting his team mates, the inability to deal with adversity as a leader and the media and locker room issues that put the team in a bad puclic light.

If this O-Line gets no better, then no one will have to worry about Cutty doing this again for much longer, or banging into his olinemen again, because he WILL go down for an extended period. Once again, I don't feel like he did anything wrong. On the contrary, I applaud him for it. But fear not, we'll have a nice view of Mr. Campbell for awhile. Houston is right though, we'll win the easy games and lose the tough ones, which is pretty much our MO over the course of Lovie's tenure.

I think the question is "how bad would it have to get to rearrange the Titanic deck chairs?" Tice is a stubborn one so I'd say 70 sacks and Jay gets hurt.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

We've all talked about the better play calling from Tice this year overcoming a bad oline. And how extra help for Webb would fix his deficiencies. Rachal is no better (and maybe worse) than Spencer. We benched C.Will our best LG.

So where does this all lead?

How bad can it get this year if THIS is as good as the oline is gonna get this season? Maybe we can be entertained by Cutler knocking his own players around? Players sniping at each other in the press?

And is this Lovie's fault alone, or does Emery share some blame here too? What do you guys think?

First of all, I would vehemently deny that this is Emery's fault in any way. Call me an apologist if you want, but I love the guy thus far and think he has done a helluva job so far de-Angelo'ing this team as much as he could with less than even one full offseason to do it in. We have been over this before to death, my friend. There was virtually nothing he could have done LT-wise. There were no FAs worth going after. The draft was thin on "LTs-out-of-the-box" (Kalil was the ONLY obvious one). We were not high enough to draft any OT who would start for us. Note that Reiff, Martin, and Adams are NOT starting for the teams that drafted them. I am happy thus far with Mc & AJ as our 1-2 and can't blame Emery one bit especially since Tice kept saying Webb was his/the guy and gonna step up. That's on Tice.

I went over this in the "Jay Cutler thread" so won't repeat it but we have little choice but to ride with Webb this year at LT. It's a bitter pill I know since he apparently hasn't progressed like we all hoped. All we can do is put CWill back at LG (which I WHOLEHEATEDLY AGREE WITH) and use proper playcalling/scheme/TE-help to mitigate the Webb issue. That's up to Tice and Lovie since the buck stops with him/them. If he/they fail, I'm all for Emery showing them the door. It isn't like the "temporary solution" is not obvious. It is. These two geniuses need to restrain their "inner Martz" and make some smart calls, which unfortunately were not made vs. Green Bay at all. I expect to see rapid improvement and results from Tice /Lovie and I do expect the OL to improve this season if the right moves are made. If not, I'd be all for Toub as HC and Bates as OC next year, but that is way premature to worry about now. Not panicking yet, especially since there's only 4 undefeated teams left in the entire NFC and none are in our division. We can still "manage" this problem effectively if the coaching staff is smart and more agile than Martz ever was.

Longer term, the OL has to be Emery's major project this offseason much like WR was this past one. I could see him following the same formula of acquiring one vet and one high draft pick. We aren't going to be in a position to draft a stud LT straight out of college unless we plan on tanking the season and finsihing 5-11. That means going hard after one of the better LTs who could hit FA (Clady, Long, Bushrod) and think about freeing the cap space necessary to do so. Yes, it can be done. I'd like to see an interior OLman drated high too. Depending how the next draft breaks down, might be a good idea to take a ILB in round 1 (groomer for Urlacher) and an OG/OC in round 2 to eventually take over for Garza who is also aging. Someone the equivalent of Wisniewski last year or Konz this year in the 2nd would be an ideal target. However you do it, the OL is going to need serious attention this coming offseason. Don't think there's much doubt about that now.

If we don't reach the playoffs again this year I hope Emery has the guts to fire the entire coaching staff and start from scratch. I'm really starting to lose patience. Every year the same promises. I wanna see results!

Originally Posted by little bear

If we don't reach the playoffs again this year I hope Emery has the guts to fire the entire coaching staff and start from scratch. I'm really starting to lose patience. Every year the same promises. I wanna see results!

How do you spell Emery: Emery. How do you spell J.A.? J.A. /Ignorant moron.
From what we have seen so far Emery is not J.A. V2. I havn't hidden I'm a fan of Emery and based on the offseason results I've no doubt he'll fix the Oline, and fire Lovie etc etc. if we fail miserable.

If the Oline doesn't get better, we don't reach the playoff unless we pull off a Tebow.
The only positive thing about the Oline if it truely fails as much as we think it can, is that we get higher draft pick with a G.M. that knows how to draft. Perhaps we get our furture LT and MLB.. Who knows?

I'm really worried about the Oline and I hope as hell they only played their B game against Colts because we need their A game for the better teams.

Originally Posted by 4DaBERS

If this O-Line gets no better, then no one will have to worry about Cutty doing this again for much longer, or banging into his olinemen again, because he WILL go down for an extended period. Once again, I don't feel like he did anything wrong. On the contrary, I applaud him for it. But fear not, we'll have a nice view of Mr. Campbell for awhile. Houston is right though, we'll win the easy games and lose the tough ones, which is pretty much our MO over the course of Lovie's tenure.

I think you're right (and Houston too). We'll go as far as the oline takes us. Maybe we can overcome a bad oline when playing bad teams. But the better teams will be tough to beat with this oline failure.